Looking For Jake and Other Stories, <\/i>by China\u00a0Mi\u00e9ville <\/i><\/p>\n
Simply put, Looking For Jake<\/i> is my favorite collection of short stories, written by my favorite author.\u00a0 I could honestly go on about China\u00a0Mi\u00e9ville for hours\u2014his ability to build believable and exciting worlds, his skill at creating emotionally deep characters, and his willingness to explore (and often break) the boundaries of genre, technique, and reader expectations are all simply astounding.\u00a0 I highly, highly recommend any of his work, but this collection is a particularly strong and accessible introduction.<\/p>\n
In the world of short story collections, Looking for Jake<\/i> stands out.\u00a0 Technically speaking, this book can be considered an addition to “the new weird,” a variety of speculative fiction that celebrates the exploration of the fantastic.\u00a0 Being supportive of this genre in general, I can’t help but be excited.\u00a0 Every single story contained within\u2014encompassing a wide range of horror, fantasy, science fiction, and all sub-categories lurking between\u2014is worth reading and re-reading.\u00a0 However, there are several that stand out as being prime examples of Mi\u00e9ville’s talent as a storyteller:<\/p>\n
— Details <\/i>is about an old woman, who is haunted by a literal devil in the details\u2014a monster, a cosmic nightmare, that dwells in the lines and edges of perception. Told from a young child’s perspective, this story is a stew of coming-of-age tale, psychological thriller, and\u00a0Lovecraftian horror.<\/p>\n
— In another favorite, Jack<\/i>,\u00a0Mi\u00e9ville returns to the city of New Crobuzon, the setting for his acclaimed novel Perdido Street Station<\/a>. <\/i>This tale is told from the point of view of a citizen who has witnessed the creation of a Robin Hood-esque legend, and is an excellent example of the author’s ability to build complex\u2014and occasionally horrible\u2014 characters.<\/p>\n — And lastly, Reports of Certain Events in London<\/i>, by far the most innovative story in the collection, is a compilation of various documents allegedly received by the author. These documents\u2014ranging from letters to meeting notes\u2014are put in order to tell a story of, well, certain events of a mysterious nature occurring on the streets of London.\u00a0 The execution is terribly clever.<\/p>\n In short, if you have never read China Mi\u00e9ville, this collection is a fantastic introduction to his work.\u00a0 If you are already a fan, be sure to give it some attention.<\/p>\n Looking for Jake<\/i> can be found both here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Looking For Jake and Other Stories, by China\u00a0Mi\u00e9ville Simply put, Looking For Jake is my favorite collection of short stories, written by my favorite author.\u00a0 I could honestly go on about China\u00a0Mi\u00e9ville for hours\u2014his ability to build believable and exciting worlds, his skill at creating emotionally deep characters, and his …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":368,"featured_media":652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13906],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-this___","column","threecol","has-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/368"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions\/484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.hampshire.edu\/theharold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}